Pasco mom helps chase down teen burglar

PASCO -- When her sister pointed at the burglar fleeing down the sidewalk from her home Monday, Kim Robison didn't think.

She just ran after the man in the black-hooded jacket.

"I can't even remember where I was," she said two hours later. "All I know is, all of a sudden I took off after him. What was I thinking?"

The 29-year-old mother of two might have rushed into the decision of going after a man who broke into her West Pasco home, but she kept a cool head during the chase. The alleged juvenile intruder was arrested shortly after Robison surprised him inside her home.

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Robison had been out to get some lunch with her sister, Stephanie Bailey, and their young children. Around 1 p.m., they went back to Robison's house on Quadra Drive to grab a coupon they had left behind.

Robison said she went through the garage to get into the house.

She froze as she entered the laundry room -- shards of glass littered the floor. For a moment she clung to the hope that the strong winds had blown a branch into the window.

Then she noticed the sliding half of the window was wide open. She backed out of the garage, hollering at her sister to corral the kids back into the car.

But Robison couldn't resist taking a peek through a window on the other corner of the house first.

As she came back around toward the garage, her sister yelled, "There he is!"

The intruder had broken out a screen from the second-floor window, jumped off the roof and was now darting down the sidewalk. When Robison first saw him, he was about four houses away.

He had picked the wrong opponent for a foot race.

Robison has run "a couple of half-marathons," she said. "But I'd always lost my momentum in the winter."

Not this winter. She set herself a 1,000-mile challenge for this year, which means she has to run about 19 miles a week, every week.

"I just ran four miles this morning," she said. "If he hadn't had a little jump on me, I think I would've caught up with him."

She took off after the suspect without much forethought.

"I was running after him like a crazy woman," she said, laughing. "I was yelling at him, 'I see you! I'm going to get you!'"

Although adrenaline had taken over to start the chase, reason prevailed as the suspect turned away from the neighborhood street.

He crossed a yard and ran onto the bike path along Interstate 182. He appeared to be headed into the scrubland between the freeway and the shopping center on Road 68.

"I've run on that path -- I know how secluded it is," Robison said.

Following the suspect there was not an option.

"I knew my husband would kill me if the guy didn't," she said jokingly.

So she stopped her pursuit and dialed 911. Her sister had done the same minutes before.

Now Robison could tell the emergency dispatcher exactly where the suspect was, and police made an arrest while she still was on the phone.

The suspect, whom police wouldn't identify because he is a minor, lives a few blocks from her, Robison said.

"I don't know why he picked our house," she said. "We're not rich."

One of the things the intruder had bundled up to haul away was a TV that Robison had bought just days before. She had saved money for months for the TV, which was a present for her husband whose birthday is Wednesday, she said.

The intruder found the TV while rummaging through their closets, Robison said. "It's a real feeling of violation," she said.

As the adrenaline was wearing off Monday afternoon, Robison said she surprised herself during and after the chase.